


Tipping Point

by audreycritter



Series: Cor Et Cerebrum [5]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, HIPAA violation, Secret Identity, Tea, impulsive destruction of listening devices, shared secret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 12:03:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18249458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: Dev knows Clark Kent and he knows Superman.But he doesn'tknowyet.Until now, that is.





	Tipping Point

**Author's Note:**

> Set during Developmental Milestones, in June, between chapters five and six.
> 
> Thank you to the anon on tumblr who asked about this and made me unable to do anything else until I solved the problem of How.

Five in the evening isn’t exactly first cup of tea time, unless, of course, one has slept morning though afternoon. Dev tugs the PG Tips tea bag out of the steaming water and drops it in the trash. One spoon of sugar and a slosh of milk later and he’s holding the cup and surveying his flat.

He’s got the evening ahead of him to do things and right now he just wants to drink a cup of tea and enjoy the quiet. Everything is in place, the tea didn’t oversteep, Superman’s at the window, maybe he’ll play a game before finding food.

Dev’s mind grinds to a halt and he’s standing in his socked feet in his flat, holding a cup of tea and staring at Superman through the large picture window. The curtains are still pulled back to let some light in; Dev likes the light when he’s not playing games.

There’s a small, polite rap on the glass.

Dev stares.

Superman flashes a warm, bright smile and waves.

Dev, tea in his hand, waves back.

The mug hits the carpet with a splash of tea and bounces before rolling on the floor. Dev jumps back with a startled, angry shout at the hot tea that’s splattered his socks.

There’s another knock at the window, while Dev is crouching to decide how to handle the tea. He glances up at Superman, still there, watching him drop tea like a sodding idiot. The hero’s face is pinched in kind concern.

Dev swears through his teeth every step to the window, and then takes a breath and unlocks the casing to slide it open.

“Hullo,” he says, mouth suddenly dry. There’s an awful lot of air between hovering Superman and the asphalt below. “Lovely evening,” he tacks on, stupidly.

“I’m sorry,” Superman says. “I forgot you wouldn’t be used to this yet. Are you okay? Did you get burned?”

“No,” Dev says faintly. “Do you…do you want to come in?”

“That’d be wonderful, thanks,” Superman says, and Dev stumbles back a meter to watch Superman angle himself through the window frame. He doesn’t even touch the sill to use it for balance, and absurdly, this is something that makes Dev’s stomach flip.

Superman doesn’t even set his boots down on the floor immediately. He just hovers there, centimeters off the ground, with his hands on his hips and a suddenly pensive expression.

At first, Dev just gapes at him. He can’t quite figure out how to move. His eyes take in the distance between Superman’s head and the ceiling and there’s some discordant grating at the calculation he automatically makes and the thing he simultaneously believes, because somehow Superman looks  _bigger_  now that he’s inside. Taller. Broader. He seems more cleanly defined, and his face is sharp angles and high, long cheekbones and piercing sea-glass blue eyes.

Dev swallows hard and turns to the abandoned, spilled mug. He picks up the mug and then without clearly thinking through any steps he should take to clean up the spilled tea, steps firmly on the tan, wet spot with both of his socks. The heat, too cooled to be uncomfortable, spreads damp beneath the soles of his feet and it’s not until both of his socks are soaked that he thinks,  _why in the sodding hell did I…_

He looks helplessly at the kitchen tea towel on the oven door and then back at Superman, who hasn’t said another word.

“Might I…offer you a cup of tea?” Dev asks, in his drenched socks with his feet unnaturally close together to cover the spill, an empty mug dangling from one hand.

“No, thank you,” Superman says, his voice perfectly pitched in the space.

“Sorry, do you mind if I…” Dev gestures to the floor, his face flushing.

“Not at all,” Superman says.

Dev peels his socks off one at a time, and then walks onto the tiled floor of the kitchen and pitches mug and socks together into the rubbish bin. There’s a second where he stares at them, feeling like his brain is broken, wondering if he can survive the additional insult to his dignity of pulling them back out and putting the mug in the sink while Superman is watching. He turns away from the rubbish bin, leaving the items behind.

It’s not until he looks up again, to see Superman’s furrowed brow, that he feels like his mind actually switches back on.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I’m acting sodding mental, and you’re likely here for a reason. Is he alright?”

Three times he’s met Superman since being led down into the cave two months ago, and every time it was brief or distracted. Once, he was scanning Damian’s healing fracture and stayed where he was to finish, while Superman and Batman talked quietly together near the computer. The second time, he was reviewing files and stocking the medical unit and got the distinct impression he was supposed to clear out, and fast, and he did so with the briefest backward glance. The third time, he was suturing a laceration on Batman’s arm while the two of them casually discussed some villain’s reformation. The cowl didn’t come off during that, and though Dev likes being able to read Wayne’s face while he works, he didn’t ask.

His heart thuds and his stomach drops at the delay in reply, because Superman is still just hovering with a thoughtful, sad frown.

Then, his eyes widen slightly and his boots hit the carpet.

“It’s not that kind of emergency, not like that,” he says.

Dev opens his mouth to say he didn’t say  _anything_  one way or another, but his palms are slick with sweat and his heart is still thrumming in his ears, at the very idea of news bad enough that  _Superman_  was the messenger.

“You…measured…my autonomic…response,” Dev says faintly, with the slightest hint of accusation.

“Yes,” Superman admits. “I do…that.”

“Oh,” Dev says, in a scraped out and empty sort of tone.

“Do you need to sit down?” Superman asks, taking a step toward him.

Superman is tall, and broad, and powerful, and there is every reason in the world for Dev to instinctively cringe backward from the movement, to step away, but he stays planted in place. He can’t explain why, and at first it doesn’t even occur to him that anything unusual has happened, just a strange absence like he’s forgotten to do something and then realized it wasn’t important after all.

“I’m quite alright,” he says, his voice thin to his own ears. “What kind of emergency is it?”

Dev leans against the arm of the couch, a sort of compromise to sitting down, hoping it looks casual and not pathetic. He crosses his arms and further hopes that helps. Then, he remembers, it doesn’t matter how he looks, because Superman will hear his heart rate anyway. This is briefly staggering and intrusive and then he numbs himself to it; if he’s an open book, then there’s no use fighting it.

“I can’t tell you all the details,” Superman says, apologetic and authoritative at once. He says it in a way that makes him sound confident but genuinely considerate. “Actually, can you hold that thought just a second?”

Dev nods.

There’s a blur and a rush of air and then just a few seconds later, Superman is in front of him again with the cape billowing out beside him over the coffee table. There’s a tiny device, the size of a sweet pea, in his hand and he crushes it to dust in his fingers.

“This was the only bug I found,” he says, setting the electronic powder onto the glass coffee table. He rubs thumb against index finger to brush it all off. “It’s Batman’s. You might want to talk to him about that, but there aren’t any others. If it makes you feel better, it’s just the one, so it’s more likely he’s trying to protect you than—”

“I know,” Dev says, more startled by the idea that anyone  _else_  might have bugged his flat. “I knew. He uh, he bloody asked.”

“He what? He  _asked_?” Superman says incredulously, his eyebrows raising toward that perfect curl of hair while he looks down at the dust.

Wayne hadn’t asked, exactly. What he’d said had been,  _I’m putting a listening device in your apartment as a security precaution,_  two days after Dev had been out on the street helping Red Hood and driving off with him in a car. He’d said it from the boy’s bedside, sleep deprivation carved so deeply into his face that Dev had answered,  _Right, then, if you sleep first._  It hadn’t been an especially difficult negotiation in the moment, even if later it unnerved him. The idea of being murdered in his sleep unnerves him a good bit more than the possibility of Wayne hearing him sing badly in the shower or shouting at the telly, so he’s been actively working on not minding.

“Yes,” is all Dev says to Superman.

“Huh,” Superman says, sounding surprised. “That’s…good.”

“What can you tell me?” Dev prompts, when they’ve both stared at the remains of the bug for several seconds.

“I guess I’ll tell him I broke that one,” Superman says, half to himself. He looks over at Dev. “In a few hours there’s a mission that will take certain League members off-world. Currently, he’s planning to be one of them.”

“Off-world,” Dev says, the phrase feeling foreign in his mouth. “As in, bloody…off the planet. In space.”

“Yes,” Superman says. “It involves rapid, pressurized travel. It will be the first time off-world since the surgery. Well, aside from the Tower, but that’s…that’s why I needed to talk to you. He won’t listen to me and he said he’s talked to you.”

“He does talk to me, yeah,” Dev says, vaguely. Some sort of internal defense is rising, a minor alarm at his shite track record with office politics. This is a colleague of Wayne’s, a caped friend, but someone he works with in the cowl. He’s not been around enough to know how close they are or how much he can or can’t give away that would complicate things for Wayne.

Superman gives him a level, unimpressed gaze. Disappointing Superman seems supremely uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to risk damaging a confidence he’s only had with the Waynes for two months, not when he’s certain it’s the best thing anyone has ever trusted him with.

“Does he tell you he’s dizzier than he used to be after using a Zeta? Does he tell you he can’t catch his breath right away?”

Mentally, Dev goes,  _Shite, Wayne. Sodding fuck._

Aloud, Dev says, “And he bloody told you, then?”

Dev wonders how much he can mouth off to Superman before he ends up on some kind of blacklist. He doesn’t think Superman would hurt him, exactly— he knows the reputation too well to think he’s the sort of being prone to losing his temper— but there have to be consequences for angering him.

“No,” Superman says, patiently. It makes Dev feel like a petulant child. “He didn’t have to. And I’m concerned about the effects of pressure on his skull, since I can see that the hole is still—”

“You can see bone,” Dev says, standing up. “You can…can you see my skeleton right now?”

Superman’s eyes narrow and then he says, “Of course.”

“Bloody hell,” Dev exhales.

“So, if he hasn’t talked to you to clear that kind of activity, I need you to discuss this with him.” Superman says this simply, reasonably, clearly expecting cooperation. Maybe he reconsiders, at the look on Dev’s face, because he adds: “Or, you can tell me how to bring it up. Or tell me to bench him. The League will follow my lead on this.”

“Sod off,” Dev snaps, his frown deepening. “I’m not his bloody handler.”

“No, that’s not…” Superman looks toward the window, as if he’s heard something. Then, slowly, he turns his attention back to Dev. “You’re his doctor. And a friend. I’m his friend. I care about his safety. He frequently does not.”

“You’re his friend,” Dev echoes. “That’s why you’ve come to me, behind his sodding back, to ask me to give you bloody permission to keep him from his work. That’s why you’ve asked me to share confidential medical information with you, while withholding your own details. Even if we were discussing this, I’d have a sodding lot of questions about pressure and capacity and safety gear before I could say anything definitive. But we’re not discussing this because that isn’t the sort of thing one does as a doctor or as a friend. Sod the fuck off.”

“Did you…just tell me to ‘fuck off?’” Superman asks, with the strangest expression. The words are precisely enunciated.

Dev wonders if he’s about to be lasered into crisp dust, left with the bug on the coffee table, even while he somehow knows it won’t happen. Knowing that it  _could_  is perhaps frightening enough. His fists clench but he doesn’t step back, and his heart is in his ears again.

“Huh,” Superman says. “Just. Huh.”

There’s a pause.

“You know he’d go behind  _your_  back,” Superman ventures, but he’s sounding uncertain, like he knows he’s lost some ground.

“He’s  _Batman!_ ” Dev exclaims. “He’d have a bloody reason!”

It feels like hours that they’re standing there, Dev’s heart hammering and Superman just staring at him like Dev is the strange one, like Dev just grew tentacles.

“Oh,” Superman says, a crease in his brow. His feet, already on the carpet, seem to settle even more and then he’s shorter somehow.

And now Dev steps back, bumping into the couch and nearly tripping. He catches himself with one hand and stays upright but just barely.

“Dev,” Superman says, in this bizarrely soft tone, and he runs a hand through his hair while looking down at his feet. “Hold on.”

There’s a concussive rush of air and the curtains flap noisily against the window and out against the wall and the glass table beside Dev’s leg rattles. Superman is gone, and Dev has barely finished a long exhale before he’s back, a pillar blur of red in front of him.

The curtains are still rustling wildly when the blur solidifies into worn jeans, a plaid flannel, tousled dark hair and a pair of glasses. Those seaglass eyes peer at him from behind lenses that distort and darken them to a murkier blue.

“I want to try this again and I want you to understand who you’re talking to,” Clark Kent says, and Dev sits down hard.

He misses the couch.

Kent offers him a hand, to help him back up, and Dev stares at it and doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe.

“What,” he manages, through his impossibly dry lips.

“Hi,” Kent says. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to start over.”

Kent.

Kent, who is Wayne’s best friend, who Dev has seen about the Manor on a regular basis for almost a year. He’s sat and had pie with him, when Kent showed up with pie from home. He’s had tea with him, overheard casual arguments about language semantics while keeping an eye on Wayne. He’s never struck Dev as anything other than soft-spoken and comfortably geeky and somehow the perfect mild counterpart to Wayne’s acerbic manner. There has never been an explanation of how he ended up Wayne’s best friend, a natural part of the household, but Dev didn’t expect one any more than he needed the detailed histories of how any of the kids ended up in Wayne’s orbit.

Wayne, he is certain by now, was just  _like_  that. Kent being so laid back and normal had made Dev feel less strange being about, when he was just over for things that weren’t strictly medical.

Apparently, that is no longer a consolation he can offer himself.

“You’re…” Dev manages, still staring at the hand.

“Superman,” Kent confirms, at the same time Dev says, “Kent.”

“How?” Dev says, the gears in his brain ominously clicking as they try to spin. He’s still on the floor, his locked arms propping him up.

“How?” Kent repeats. “I’m…what are you asking me to explain to you, here. I’m an alien, Dev.”

There is no thing Dev plans to say to that, while his mouth works open and closed, because his mind has lost all words. The information is staggering even while it clicks neatly into place— Wayne managing two sides of a friendship as unusual as he is; the way Damian had looked at him like he was an idiot and then the tiny, knowing smile when Kent had tripped last week and Dev had asked if he were alright; the fact that Kent had been about so much after the surgery almost a year ago. He wasn’t just a friend, he must have been security— security Wayne trusted to be around when he might say anything. Security that  _knew_  what was under their feet in the Manor.

It makes such perfect sense  _now_  that Dev feels absolutely and thoroughly stupid for not ever seeing it sooner, like building a puzzle and realizing the piece he’d been hunting for had been in his hand all along.

“Bloody hell,” he says. “I…I put salt in your tea.”

“Yes,” Kent says. “To make Damian smile. I heard him dare you to.”

“And you drank it anyway,” Dev says.

“It was for a good cause,” Kent says. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Dev says, bluntly. “I’m sodding not.”

“I’m sorry,” Kent says, an actually wounded twist to his mouth, and in the corners of his eyes. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“You’re bloody brilliant,” Dev says, sitting forward and putting a hand over his face. He drags it down over his beard. “You’re  _Superman_ , and I didn’t even notice. I’m the sodding idiot who’s on the floor. I mopped up tea with my  _socks_.”

Somehow, knowing he’s Kent puts Dev more at ease as the seconds slip by. He twists to see into the kitchen.

“I pitched them in the rubbish bin. And the mug.”

“Yep,” Kent says, looking the same way. “I almost said something, but…well.”

“Sodding fuck,” Dev says. He pulls himself up on the arm of the couch and then sits down on the edge of the arm. “I’m…were you  _trying_  to scare the shite out of me? Was this payback?”

“Telling you wasn’t exactly planned,” Kent says. “Though I have been considering it. I hoped you’d listen to me as someone who worked with him. Maybe now we can talk?”

Superman asking for information about Batman was one thing. Kent, one of Wayne’s emergency contacts on hospital record, was possibly another.

“Are you asking me to stop him, or to facilitate an intervention?” Dev asks, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Where’d you put the bloody cape.”

“It’s tucked in,” Kent says. “I don’t want you to stop him. I want to know what you think. Can he actually handle this, or am I standing by while he does something too dangerous to warrant the risk?”

Dev looks at Superman, standing in his flat in glasses and a cape tucked under his plaid flannel shirt. Except he  _isn’t_  Superman at the moment. He’s tucked all those parts of himself away, folded them in and hidden them like the cape. The rolled slouch of his shoulders, the earnest gaze, the comfortable pinch of glasses by his ears. He’s all Kent.

“What makes you think he’ll listen to me if I say it’s a bad idea?” Dev asks, crossing his arms again while he thinks.

“Dev,” Kent says, “I would give the wheat in Kansas to know why he listens to you. You figure it out, tell me, please. I would love to have that power.”

“It’s my only bloody power, and you’ve too many already,” Dev says, realizing a second later it might be too presumptuous, but Kent just laughs. Dev tucks his chin and scuffs a toe on the carpet. “Alright. This is…there are a lot of variables here. Very few of them have lab-tested comparisons. You said he’s off with the Zeta?”

“Still is,” Kent says, with a nod. “It’s harder on him than it used to be.”

“That could be physical pressure or meds,” Dev says. “But the breathing concerns me. Is he, can you tell, is he  _holding_  his breath to brace for other parts?”

Kent shrugs, and looks honestly sad. “Beats me. Last time I tried to ask, he shut me out. He doesn’t like talking about it with me, not this.”

“Bugger me,” Dev mutters, breathing in sharply. “Then I’ll ring him. When are you set to go?”

“2300 Eastern Standard,” Kent says.

“I’ll meet him at the cave and run him through paces, any test I can think of, but the choice is ultimately his, no matter what I find. I’ll be as bloody honest and blunt as I can be with him, but I won’t tell you to take that choice from him unless I think he’s well and truly unbalanced. He’s not really reckless, for all he might look it.”

“I know,” Kent says, soft and sincere. “I’ve been watching him do things he shouldn’t be able to do for a long time. I just…I worry, you know?”

“Well, someone ought to,” Dev says, consolingly. “He deserves that.”

“Thank you,” Kent says, offering a hand. “I know he’s not going to be happy I said anything.”

“Who bloody said he’d know?” Dev retorts. He has the experience of watching Kent’s face do some sort of roulette where it can’t quite settle on an expression, as Dev shakes his hand. “I’m not going to sodding tell him. You can, if you like, but I like being mysterious when I can manage it.”

“The bug,” Kent says, jerking a thumb toward the dust.

It’s Dev’s turn to shrug. “I spilled tea on it.”

“In the ceiling light casing.”

“I’m bloody clumsy, and sensitive,” Dev says, with a rakish grin. “Don’t mock me.”

“Yep,” Kent says. “With your socks. That’s my retaliation for the salt. I’m not going to let you live that one down for a long, long time.”

“Right, then. It’s a small price to pay for knowing Superman, innit?” Dev asks, and there’s a hand clapped on his back— just the right amount of force, just the right kind of warm.

“I’ll see you around,” Kent says. “Holler if you need anything, alright?”

Dev nods and there’s a  _whoosh_  and he’s alone in the flat again. He pulls out his mobile and presses call. It’s answered on the second ring.

“Wayne, we’ve some tests to run before you travel again. Meet me in thirty minutes at the house.”


End file.
